Dear Grade School Pen Pal, That I Have Barely Lived

inside someone else’s life

              imagining imagination

                            to be enough

drank water from an Ohio hose

             but not one in Poltava

                           too-green rubber and

nozzle like a penny on your lips

             then dumping a dusty bag

                           on a wood block in your garden

rubbing dirt from turnips

             a field guide of vegetables

                           eaten standing up before dark

come summer solstice

             do you still jump over fire

                           on the banks of a lake

as the pagans did holding hands

             to avoid exiting the day

                           alone

do I talk like your grandma

             in this prewar Galician

                           mountain tongue

have you reconciled Babi Yar’s graves

             against your neighbor

                           in black denim

ancestors’ shame of being

             willing and able to slip off

                           an old life like a star

that you could buy new pants in Cleveland

             and polyester polo shirts

                           store your samovar in the crawlspace

do you still stomp your feet

             in circles and yawp and bend

                           cartwheel and hoist each other

in wedding dances

             to lambskin drums

                           and bandura plucking chants

or have I been enshrined

             in a folktale in a snow cave

                           waiting for weather to change

are your flower crowns

             and hand-stitched vyshyvanky

                           jammed in a trunk

when’s the last time you ate

             lard with garlic and salt

                           on dark rye for fun

herring forshmak

             and pashtet on the

                           battered sea wall

do you keep wheat drying

             in a ceramic vase

                           ochre and charcoal

with panels of a myth

             about roe deer

                           and hunger

bells hung from the ceiling

             that won’t chime

                           but sometimes sway like a dress

do you skim and save

             fat off your chicken soup

                           have you wondered why

it’s hard to talk

             but easy to cry and laugh

                           power evaporated in a guffaw

have I mentioned I’ve forgotten

             words and places one by one

                           my pockets cut open

as I sat and conjured a place

             scrambling for what fell away

                           not sure if a word would reach you